


while you were sleeping, I was turning the dial

by baroquemirrors



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 22:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7126507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baroquemirrors/pseuds/baroquemirrors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This is what it sounds like, that place beyond death where Root's voice still murmurs from. This is God Mode. This is music.</i> </p><p>Shaw's perspective after 5x10, "The Day the World Went Away." Canon compliant. Angsty but mildly comforting... maybe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	while you were sleeping, I was turning the dial

**Author's Note:**

> First attempt at POI fic. Just working through some of my ~emotions~ prior to tonight's episode.

When Shaw was seven she took a road trip with her father to see the Houston Oilers play the Philadelphia Eagles. What she remembers most about that trip is the car ride itself— driving home from the game under a sky so dark it swallowed the road in front of them. Her father kept playing with the radio dial, trying to find some scrap of a song in that empty countryside. He tried every frequency but all he got was static. They listened to it anyway, her father humming contentedly as fuzzy voices filled the car before escaping out the open windows.

Now, when John pulls the phone from his ear and turns to look at her, Shaw imagines herself reaching for the radio dial.

It turns and turns in her mind, trying to find a clear channel-- some song or melody she can recognize, even just the distorted hum of a familiar voice with which to ground herself. But there's nothing.

No more of that nonsensical computer talk. No more pseudo-religious technological fanaticism or zealous speeches. No more metaphysics in the middle of a gunfight. 

No more flirty quips.  No ‘ _honey,’_ or ‘ _sweetie,’_ or _‘darlin.’_

Shaw turns the volume all the way up, and the silence that greets her is deafening.

____________________________________

  

She doesn’t go back to the subway with the others. Instead she decides to follow up a lead on the last Samaritan agent she was chasing. John tries to stop her, but she shakes him off; turns off her phone and disables the com link.

When she finds the agent’s apartment she doesn’t bother with delicacy; just kicks down the door, pulls the guy out of bed, and pounds her fists into his flesh until her knuckles split open.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Root told her it would be alright; that they’d figure it out together. And Shaw believed her, because through seven thousand simulations the thought of Root had remained her safe haven.

But Root's gone, and now _nowhere_ feels safe.

Shaw puts three rounds in the enemy's chest, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. She keeps on firing; unloads an entire clip of ammo into the exposed brick walls of the apartment. It’s a waste of munitions but she needs to hear the stone crack, needs to feel the recoil of the gun and hear the shell casings hit the floor. Needs to find a way to shoot out the silence.

Without Root, Shaw is a hand grenade missing its safety pin. She's afraid of who she'll hurt when she finally detonates.

 ____________________________________

 

John finds her in the subway car later that night, standing in front of the monitors. There are three security feeds from the street above the subway station. The rest of the screens are blank, like the machine has gone into sleep mode.

“You should rest, Shaw.”

“I don’t see _you_ napping, John.” 

Reese looks tired. Shaw’s still holding her handgun.  They glance at each other with silent understanding.

“Finch says she’s in there.”  Shaw motions at the monitors.

“That sounds like the kind of crap only two computer geeks would believe.”

“I know.” Shaw _almost_ smiles. 

She’s never understood the Machine quite as well as the rest of them do, has never been connected to it like Root and Harold, or even the way John has. _God Mode_ , they call it. Imagine that: God’s voice in your ear. 

Shaw’s never been much of a believer.

A sound breaks the silence, and it takes her a few seconds to realize it’s the pay phone ringing in its alcove.  _Once. Twice. Three times._

“You gonna answer that?” John asks her.

“No."

Shaw turns her back on the monitors and leaves the train car. She lets herself into Root's bedroom and lays down on top of the unmade bed, where Bear has been sleeping for hours.

 

____________________________________

  

Root left them a parting gift. 

“A kill switch,” Finch explains, “For Samaritan. A virus of sorts.”

“How do you know it will work?” John asks him.

“Because… the machine helped her. It's a very clever bit of code.”

Even Shaw can hear the difference in Harold's voice—the new steel it carries, like a weapon waiting to be drawn.

“They wrote it together, using the results of the simulations I’ve been running in the Faraday cage. The data would have allowed them to assess the possible outcomes and to account for any… contingencies.”

“Sometimes sims get it wrong,” Shaw reminds him.

She's been thinking about what Root told her—that they’re _all_ simulations now, all just variables in a battle between the only two true constants left in the universe. But something about that logic just doesn't seem right, because _Root_  was the only thing Shaw could ever be sure of. Root was a constant, if ever there was one.

The only reason Samaritan couldn’t figure that out is because it didn’t know Root well enough to predict her.It programmed her to stand there and watch while Shaw lifted a gun to her own temple; to hold still while Shaw pulled the trigger. Thousands of iterations of the same scenario, and never once did Samaritan realize it had gotten Root all wrong, that its simulations were based on false data.  The _real_ Root would never just stand idle while a friend was in danger. She would take the bullet, every time— for Shaw, and for Harold. For the Machine. For all of them. 

And if Root was a constant, then maybe they all were. Maybe the world was nothing _but_ constants. Maybe there was only ever one possible choice for every person, and the only question was whether Samaritan and the Machine understood them well enough to predict it.

“Do you think it knew?” Shaw says abruptly.

“Knew what?”

“That Root would die for you.” She glances up at Harold as she says it, wondering if he’ll flinch. He doesn’t. 

“I suppose you could ask her.” 

Shaw knows that already-- knows that if the pay phone were to ring again and she were to answer it, she’d hear Root’s voice on the other end. Even after death, Root found a way to keep bugging her. _Typical_. 

“No thanks."

“Sameen. I believe— _Root believed_ — that the Machine knows all of us, perhaps better than we know ourselves.”

“Then why didn’t it give us her number?”

There’s a long pause, and this time it’s John’s voice that fills the silence.  “Maybe because the machine already knew it couldn’t have stopped her. That she’d always put the mission first, regardless of whether her own life was in danger.”

“But it gave us Finch's number. Why his, and not Root's?” 

She thinks it over, trying to see it the way Root would. Trying to fit all the clues together, like a puzzle, or an algorithm. Behind them, the gaming consoles that form the machine’s servers hum with electric energy. They fill the room with static; pure white nose.

“Of course,” Shaw says suddenly.  _“You’re_ the variable, Harold. The one thing Samaritan can’t account for. Because you did something unpredictable— you changed your mind. Threw out your own rules.”

“And Root helped you do it,” John finishes for her.

It makes sense, of course—why Root would sacrifice herself, and why the machine would let her. 

But saying it, _understanding_ it, even, doesn’t bring Shaw any real clarity. 

The radio in her mind keeps skipping from station to station, every signal still drowned out by the machine’s static hum.

 

____________________________________

 

“Reese, it’s a no-go on the stairwell. I need another way.” 

Shaw ducks around the corner, fires off the remaining rounds in the dwindling magazine. Two yelps tell her she hit the mark. She retreats again, ejects the mag, jams a new one into place. 

“John. You there? _Goddamn it_ , Reese, answer me.”

He’s not responding. Shaw prods the earpiece with her free hand, repeats his name. Nothing.

She's alone now.

Bullets spray the wall beside her, chipping into the whitewashed cinderblock. Shaw yanks the door open, retreating back the way she came. She can hear their footsteps thundering up the stairs. She knows how this ends: the same way it has thousands of times already, in all the simulations.

Shaw drops the assault rifle, reaching for her handgun, and—

_"Can you hear me?”_

The voice sounds like Root's, but it isn't really. It’s just a memory, a remnant. A ghost in the machine. 

But when Shaw answers, she says the name anyway. “Yeah, Root. I can hear you.”

“I restored power to the elevator at the end of the hall. Quickly. Lionel needs your help.” 

Shaw does as she’s told; runs down the hall, gets in the elevator, punches the button for the lobby.  “Fourteen Samaritan operatives,” the machine warns.

“Got it. Just tell me where to aim."

When the doors open the sound beyond swells like an orchestral suite; the explosion of shotgun shells, the percussive rhythm of pistol fire, Shaw’s breath like the sound of an entire wind section, Root’s voice in her ear like a melody. The Machine at the heart of it all, conducting them.

This is what it sounds like, that place beyond death where Root's voice still murmurs from. This is God Mode. This is _music_.

Shaw isn't the radio— she’s the song. 

 _If we’re just information,_ she remembers, _just noise in the system..._

_... we might as well be a symphony._

 


End file.
